


courtship through coffee

by CheesePie30



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Romance Novel, M/M, Oikawa as a romance novelist knowing near to nothing about actual relationships irl, Pining, also iwaizumi is there
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-03
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 06:40:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5698729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheesePie30/pseuds/CheesePie30
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa Tooru. Romance novelist. Famous probably halfway around the world. Status? Single as all hell.</p><p>Iwaizumi Hajime. Coffeeshop barista. Known probably around the neighborhood. Status? Also single as all hell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	courtship through coffee

**Author's Note:**

> ha ha what the fuck did i write this time
> 
> also what the fuck are titles
> 
> also, im sorry this isnt an update for love stuck but ive had this thing in my drafts for forever and its been buggin me

Oikawa Tooru. Romance novelist. Famous probably halfway around the world. Status? Single as all hell.

As a romance novelist, he writes about great relationships and the different ways people could meet, how they could bond over different things, likes and dislikes, and their relationships had their normal ups and downs that people thought his books were relatable, but sometimes he writes about fantastical journeys of a person to find love, fighting great beasts to get the love of their life. He writes about cute dates and beautiful weddings.

So naturally, of course he knows how to date people, and how it feels like to love and to be loved, right? Right.

Actually, no. Wrong wrong wrong.

He had no idea how to date, and what he was supposed to do when he liked someone, or anything when he liked someone. He's never dated, never been asked out formally, only in clubs and letters from his fan base.

So, yeah. Imagine his surprise when someone actually _did_ ask him out.

**\--x--**

"Sorry, what?" Oikawa blinked. The man in front of him, Iwaizumi Hajime, reddened. "I... I... I'm think I'm asking you out on a date?" He said, reddening further. "Well, it's just that... You come here every day, and I just..." Oikawa curled his fingers around his to-go cup of coffee. "Uh, look... Iwaizumi... I don't do the whole dating thing... I- It's not that I think you're unattractive or anything, I just don't date." Oikawa said, pulling his coffee towards himself. "Sorry." He added as an afterthought. "W- Wait, I-- Can you reconsider?" Iwaizumi said, looking at Oikawa with such earnest Oikawa stopped himself. "I... I'll think about it." Oikawa said before hurrying out of the coffeeshop, eager to get back to his apartment. _(Or maybe he was just eager to get away from the awkwardness of the situation he was just  in.)_

"You _what_?" Sugawara Koushi – who preferred to be called Suga – squealed over the phone, and Oikawa had to pull the phone away from his face. He was lying on his bed, and usually after he got his coffee he was ready to write. But after he got his coffee he just felt... Off. He had immediately called up Suga when he couldn't write anything after five minutes.

**\--x--**

_“Suga!" Oikawa had said, panicked, into the phone._

_"What? Oikawa, what's wrong? What happened?" Suga, usually calm and collected, started to sound slightly frazzled._

_"Okay so I got my coffee like normal but then Iwaizumi - you remember him right he's the one who makes my coffee - well as I was getting my coffee he asked me out, Suga, and now I can't write because I keep thinking about it please help me Suga." Oikawa blurted it out, all into a rush of babbled words and frenzied gestures Suga probably couldn't see._

_"Wait what? Iwaizumi, like, Iwaizumi Hajime? The guy who started giving you discounts because you kept coming into the coffee shop like, everyday? That Iwaizumi?" Suga's voice was less panicked and more curious._

_"Yes, that Iwaizumi. I can't write! Help me!" Oikawa rolled his eyes despite the panic he was feeling._

_"Wait, wait, just hold up a moment here." Oikawa could see Suga holding up a hand, as if Oikawa could see him. "He asked you out? Like, on a date?"_

_"Suga, keep up with me, yes, he did, I remember his exact words were ‘I think I'm asking you out on a date’." Oikawa said, unsure why he actually remembered the words._

_“And what did you say?” Suga was really excited, now. He was such a mom sometimes._

_“I said what I always say.” Oikawa said, frowning slightly, fingers tapping on his bed sheets. “I don’t date.”_

**\--x--**

Which brings us back to date.

"You _what_?" Suga squealed into the phone loudly and let out a strangled noise. “You always tell people you ‘don’t date’.” Suga said, with such a scolding tone in his voice Oikawa felt guilty. Suga had that effect on people.

“Well I don’t!” He said defensively. “Not really. I have books to write. That doesn’t really give me much time to do things like date, Suga.”

An entirely maternal sigh came from the phone. “Oikawa...”

“Suga, really. I don’t date. I don’t like dating anyway.” Oikawa moved his hand to twirl a piece of his hair around a finger.

“You don’t like dating because dating never ends well with you.” Suga said. Oikawa frowned, a small crease on his forehead appearing. It was a low blow, Suga bringing up his past ‘relationships’, but it was the truth. 

“Exactly. So I’m saving us both the emotional trauma, actually all three of us because at some point I will drag you into all the emotional trauma of the situation and we’ll end up crying and eating a tub of ice cream and your boyfriend is going to come and get me more ice cream because you’ll stop crying because your mom instincts are going to kick in after eating all the ice cream and the exposure of me crying and I’ll be crying and you’ll be my secondary mother, as you always do.” Oikawa said, sounding tired of the roundabout, endless cycle of the bitter end of his relationships.

It’s not like he was a bad boyfriend, per se. He stayed on his side of the bed, most of the time, remembered dates and always told his date in advance if he couldn’t make it somewhere, never tried to cheat on them or flirt with other people while he was with them – not on purpose – and he certainly wasn’t bad in bed.

The only problem was usually the reasons why he couldn’t meet them. He had deadlines for his job, he fell ill because he stayed up all night working, and he spent most of his time writing. He was loving, but only when he found the time to tear himself away from his laptop and his writing.

“I mean, I think you should give it a try, y’know? Iwaizumi’s not a bad guy.” Suga said, his voice soft. Oikawa was quiet. “… I told him I’d think about it.”

“Please do, Oikawa.” Suga said, concern filling Oikawa’s ear. “I think he could be a good break for you. You’ve been getting a few more eye bags lately.” He spoke the last sentence casually, jokingly.

“Suga you’re mean!” Oikawa pouted. Suga just laughed. “Thank you, though.” Oikawa said, eyes glancing over to his laptop on standby. “I think I’ll go back to writing now.” If Suga were in front of him, he’d be nodding his head. “Yeah, sure.” “No promises that I’ll actually say yes.” Oikawa said, and Suga paused for a moment. “Okay. That’s fair.” He said, before saying bye to Oikawa and hanging up.

Oikawa set down his phone. He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, just breathing. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking at his laptop. His eyes glanced over to the to-go cup of coffee, with his name written on it in Iwaizumi’s sharp handwriting. He sighed, shrugged, and walked to his laptop. He pulled out his chair and put his fingers to work.

A few minutes into his writing, Oikawa’s eyes glanced over to the still-full cup of coffee. His finger twitched, missing a letter, and he cursed under his breath as he fixed the minor error. _He really didn’t want to think about it._ He closed his eyes tightly and drank from the disposable cup, downing a good fraction of it. He set down the cup carefully before going back to his typing.

He did love writing. It was a bit of his passion to write. When he was younger, his sister would often ask him for help with her homework, any homework that required writing something, be it a short story, or a poem, and once, she even asked him to help her write a love letter. It was for a prank, she had said, but Oikawa found it extremely coincidental that she suddenly had a boyfriend a few weeks or so after he helped her write the letter. He never asked her about it, though.

When he told his parents he wanted to take up Creative Writing in college, they only slightly hesitated before agreeing, but not before Oikawa agreed to have a secondary degree in another course, something he agreed to, because he loved astronomy as well. When he was younger, he would stare up at the sky for endless amounts of time, until his mother would call him back inside the house. Then, then he would write. He would write for almost hours on end, about the stars, the sky, what could be beyond his sight, beyond the movies he would watch, beyond everything. It took his breath away, knowing how grand the whole universe was.

He got a telescope from his dad on his thirteenth birthday. He would spend most of his time looking through it, especially at night. The best parts of the day were when he would arrive home from club, the volleyball club, and he would take a bath and change into his pajamas and watch the sky through his telescope. After which, he would write, again. He never tired of writing, he always had something to say, something to show, something to _write_. He never ran out of ideas, either. His first story was written when he was still a child. It was about a fish who wished to fly, because we all felt that at some point, the urge, the itch, to be anywhere than where you were, oftentimes wishing you could fly away from it all. To make a short story shorter, the fish didn’t end up learning to fly. She was caught by a fisherman and hung on a wall. Oikawa got a B.

Oikawa was working now. He didn’t have that many close friends, mostly just some from his college years, but Suga was way back in high school. He probably had a few acquaintances though. There was always a guy in the park feeding the birds when Oikawa would go out for his early morning jogs, and sometimes he would wave to Oikawa, and Oikawa would wave back, and occasionally Oikawa would take a break and feed the birds beside him, or maybe buy him some breakfast. There was also the nice old waitress at the diner he frequented every other Saturday, who always managed to slip him another piece of milk bread.

And then there was Iwaizumi Hajime.

They met when Oikawa's friend Yachi, who worked at the coffee shop for the longest time, had to move due to a family matter. They still kept in touch, of course, via texts and online messaging.

She left on a happy note, promising to update Oikawa with her life. Currently, she was an apprentice under a beauty she could barely compare to.

Coincidentally, a few days after she left, Iwaizumi Hajime was looking for a job.

**\--x--**

_Iwaizumi knocked on the glass door. The sign still displayed ‘Closed’, but beside it, a ‘Help Wanted’ sign was taped onto the door._

_He needed a job. It wasn’t like he was desperate for a job, but he didn’t like the idea of getting a job only when he absolutely needed it. His friends and his roommates teased him mercilessly about him becoming a responsible old man when he first pitched the idea to them, though they went ahead and got jobs over the summer too. He had two roommates, a black-haired man named Akaashi Keiji, who had a job and didn’t tease Iwaizumi when he pitched his idea to him and Bokuto Koutarou, his other roommate. He had spiky hair with streaks of black and white running through it. His other friends, Matsukawa Issei and Hanamaki Takahiro, were actually living in an apartment three blocks away, and one block away from the coffee shop that needed a new worker._

_Actually, prior to Iwaizumi’s application to the coffee shop as a barista, he was doing pretty well as a waiter in a diner some blocks away. It had a good pay and good hours, but it was far, and Iwaizumi didn’t really have the means to get to far places in short amounts of time. So when Hanamaki called him up and told him about the new opening in the Maison du Corbeau, which offered the same pay and hours Iwaizumi had at his old job, he was more than a bit sceptical, but he knew not to look a gift horse in its mouth and gratefully accepted the offer. His old boss was sad to see him go, which of course almost made Iwaizumi change his mind, but Bokuto reminded him to stay firm, and Iwaizumi, somehow, got a job at the Maison du Corbeau. “It’s great that we found someone so quickly after Yachi left.” His new manager, Sawamura Daichi, had said. Iwaizumi was quickly introduced to the rest of the team, which consisted of Tanaka Ryuunosuke, a boisterous man with a buzzcut who worked the register sometimes, but was also a barista, Azumane Asahi, a man taller than Iwaizumi  with a glass heart who baked the best pastries and breads for the Maison, and Hinata Shouyou, a short, orange-haired bouncy waiter-barista who almost always sounded and acted like he always had a shot of 5-hour energy drink. Every three hours._

_Other than that, Iwaizumi’s first impression about the place was pretty alright. The Maison itself was classy, with tiles that were a solid, shining black splattered with white specks of varying sizes, the walls were a clean tone of cream with thin royal blue stripes running own the wall in between large sections of the cream, and the ceiling was painted to look like a beautiful blue sky, with white, fluffy clouds artfully scattered across the blue. The lights that were small were hidden in the paintings of the clouds on the ceiling, and all around in between the tiles on the floor. Of course, there were larger lights, but they were  in little boxed holes in the walls. The counter-island was right across from the door, and there were cabinets under the tops, which were also of tile, but differently colored. The white was the major color with faint splatters of different shades of grey. There was a backroom for breaks, and it was simple, two mismatched sofas on either side of a square, light grey carpet on the hardwood floor, a smooth coffee table in the middle, and a long table by the far end, with a coffee machine (their own personal one), some mugs in a drawer under the table, spoons, forks and knives in another, plates too, and Asahi-san always made extra treats for the backroom. There were two windows, one beside the long table with the food and coffee machine on it, and the other behind one of the sofas. There was a rack for coats, hats, and the aprons beside the door. Beside the backroom was the kitchen, which was small and fit just about three people. During the interview, Daichi already seemed impressed, and he asked Iwaizumi if he could start the next week. “Of course.” Iwaizumi said, grinning widely as he and Daichi shook hands firmly._

_All in all, things were going fairly well for him._

_Until his first day on the job._

_“First day on the job! Don’t mess it up!” Bokuto had said, before Iwaizumi threw a pillow at his face and left for the Maison._

_He entered the Maison and waved to Tanaka as he made his way to the backroom. He set down his bag and put on an apron, along with a nametag that spelled out his name in neat, sharp handwriting. He  nodded to Asahi as he brought in another batch of blueberry muffins. He glanced at the clock, since he didn’t have a watch, and tapped the pads of his fingers against the cold counter gently. It was 8:35. The morning rush seemed to have thinned out, and Tanaka was giving a small packet of double chocolate chip cookies to a small girl with cute dark brown pigtails. He busied himself with rearranging a few to-go cups that fell over during the morning rush. Tanaka was making a bunch of drinks for a group of people and Iwaizumi was left waiting at the counter._

_He looked up at the clock again. 8:42._

_The bell hanging over the door chimed, the high sound reaching Iwaizumi’s ears._

_He looked up from the counter and felt his heart skip a beat._

_A beauty had just walked into the Maison._

_He had soft chocolate brown hair that seemed to bounce with life with every step he took. His eyes were bright, almost shining in the same brown shade as his hair. If Iwaizumi looked closer, he could see a small smile on his lips. He walked with a spring in his step, like he had been having the best day ever, to the counter. He was standing right behind the group Tanaka was making drinks for, and he nodded to Iwaizumi, as if to tell him to make the next order. Iwaizumi nodded back, before stepping out of the way for Tanaka to move to the counter, giving the five to-go Americanos to the group of sleep-deprived people. “I’ll take a break after this one.” Tanaka said with a grin, like he knew a secret._

_"Hey, Oikawa!" Tanaka said, as loud as ever. “Good morning Ryuu-chan!” The beauty chirped, small smile still playing on his lips. “I heard Hitoka-chan was doing well in the other branch, how’re you guys faring without her?” He made small talk with Tanaka, not that Iwaizumi minded. There weren’t any other customers, so it wasn’t like he was holding up any people. The only thing Iwaizumi really minded was his chirpy, bubbly voice. No actual person was that energetic in the morning, were they?_

_“We’re doing pretty great! We got a new guy, his name’s Iwaizumi!” Tanaka grinned and pointed at Iwaizumi with his thumb. Iwaizumi leaned against the back counter and shot a look to Tanaka, before nodding to Oikawa. “Morning.” He said, meeting Oikawa’s gaze before shifting his eyes to the side. His stare was too intense, like he was studying Iwaizumi, slowly prying him open, studying his every facet and piecing him back together. He still felt the intense gaze on him, and the tips of his ears burned._

_“Anyway, what’ll you be having today? Your usual?” Tanaka asked Oikawa._

_“Hm… Yeah, sounds good. I’ll be sitting at my usual table, okay?” Oikawa said, before handing Tanaka some money and going off. Tanaka turned to Iwaizumi after putting the money in the cash register. “Okay. One important thing to remember; Oikawa is a regular. He comes by every day to buy a large Vanilla Latte, and two pancakes with orange syrup and a side of either a blueberry muffin or a cheese roll, whichever one is available. And… If they both are, just grab the muffin.” Tanaka said as Iwaizumi started making the Vanilla Latte. “Okay. Is that all?” Tanaka thought for a moment, his mouth opening and closing uselessly before he snapped it closed with a grin. “Nah! I’m sure you can figure it out soon enough! I’ll take my break now, though. Morning rush nearly killed me today.” He said, walking into the backroom._

_After making the drink, Iwaizumi scanned the room quickly and found Oikawa sitting to the direct side of the counter. He placed his drink and food on a tray and walked over to Oikawa. “Hey.” He said, and Oikawa looked up from a small sketchpad, lips circled in an ‘O’. “Oh! Ryuu-chan never makes my order this fast!” He commented, before setting aside his sketchpad to take the tray off of Iwaizumi’s hands. “Will that be all, sir?” Oikawa was about to take a sip of his Vanilla Latte when Iwaizumi spoke. He blinked and took a sip of the latte. A small noise came from the back of his throat. He set down the drink and looked up at Iwaizumi, eyes practically sparkling. “This tastes so much better than usual! Were- Did you make it?” He said excitedly, and Iwaizumi felt a blush creep up his neck. “Yeah, I did.” He said, embarrassed, looking away from Oikawa’s eyes, which he just then noticed had flecks of what looked like gold in them. “It’s so good!” Oikawa said, reaching out and tugging at Iwaizumi’s fingers, half-forcing him to look back at him. Iwaizumi felt his blush rise up higher, and he gently pulled his hand away. “Y- Yeah, it’s my job to make good drinks. It’s nothing.” He said, hand slightly missing the warmth Oikawa’s hand around his fingers brought. He was about to walk away when Oikawa sent him a wide smile, bright and shining and _warm_ , like the sun on a winter morning. Iwaizumi felt his heart skip a beat, and he silently took back his thought of why any sane person would be so chipper in the morning. He walked back to the counter and leaned against it, mind wandering off, wondering if Oikawa’s hair had the same lines of golden in them, like his eyes._

_Minutes passed, and Iwaizumi served a few more people before he came face to face with Oikawa at the counter._

_“Hey.” Iwaizumi said, fingers tapping the counter gently. “Need something?” He asked._

_“Actually, I’ll be going now. But before I do, could I have a large Vanilla Latte, to go?” Iwaizumi felt a warm feeling creep up his neck when Oikawa tilted his head, small smile playing on his lips again._

_“Oh, sure, no problem. Coming right up.” Iwaizumi said as he turned to make Oikawa’s Vanilla Latte. He heard a soft humming from behind him, and he dared to look back._

_Oikawa’s eyes were glazed, like he was seeing a different world altogether. His lips still had the same small smile on them, but Iwaizumi looked closer and saw that the corners were twitching upwards ever so slightly more, like he was dreaming. He was humming a soft tune, swaying gently. It wasn’t much, but it was mesmerizing._

_The next thing Iwaizumi knew, the steaming milk that was in his hand had gone warm. He silently cursed and set the milk aside, forcing himself to focus on making the Vanilla Latte._

_He kept looking back, though, and finding Oikawa in the same state. Swaying, humming, and smiling dreamily, as if he was floating above and beyond the clouds._

_Finally, _finally_ , Iwaizumi finished the drink and he popped the cap on and handed it to Oikawa, who was standing at the pick-up counter. He handed Oikawa some tissues and a straw as well, and gave him the receipt._

_He was rewarded with another heart-stopping, dazzling smile, before Oikawa waved and turned to leave the Maison, Iwaizumi’s heart and eyes trailing after him._

_Iwaizumi was smitten._

_He had to see him again._

 

**Author's Note:**

> anything i missed? please comment :)


End file.
